Thank you for the link to those marvelous buildings!
I have never been able to host a wargame at home because of 35 years of travel/work, 5 days a week.
But I like the idea of small scale terrain for 28mm figures.
I built my French at 36 figures per battalion of 720 men (or smaller, if we wanted to represent worn-down units). My units are mounted on 1 and 2-figure stands, with no "grass" etc, and can be deployed in 3 units of 12 (representing a battalion of 720 men, 3 ranks deep); 2 units of 18 in single line, same 720; 1 unit of 36, 3 ranks deep, or perhaps 2 ranks.
The units of 12 represent 720 men, 3 ranks deep – 120 men wide. Using 30 inches per man, this would be about 100 yards width. My single 36-figure "battalion" would represent 3 battalions in this organization, and could be a "brigade" frontage of over 300 yards. Add spacing between the battalions of 50 yards, and you have 400 yards. These units of 12 could be in single-company column of 2 figures wide, 6 deep; or double company column of 4 figures wide, 12 deep. "Ordre mixte" would find left battalion two companies wide, allowing much more space from the center battalion in line – actually done to allow cavalry to ride forward between the battalions, or guns to deploy. The right battalion in a column would allow room for more guns, more cavalry.
So small, 3-dimensional houses would be most appropriate to go with 28mm figures in this context. Even so, a single building in 20mm scale might have to represent several/many buildings of a village.
When I gamed with others back in the 1990's, we sometimes used "floor plans" of villages, drawn on Manila folder-type card stock, just 2-dimensional, with rectangles of different shapes to represent houses, sections of village, etc. A number inside each rectangle represented how many defenders in 30mm could occupy that sector.
We could start the game with attractive house models covering the card stock, then pull the houses off, and put model soldiers on the stock as the enemy came in range – Surprise volley!
I once has a permanent 6 foot table set up in a sun porch at home in Paris TX, with 15mm Old Glory 15's – Hanoverians, Prussians, British, Hessians defending a town of ceramic Christmas Tree houses with strings cut off, against the attack by French. The houses were not to any scale, but certainly too small for 15mm figures. They looked great, and local kids (of all ages – No one knew anything about any wars except [1] The Alamo; [2] the ACW; or [3] WWII.) loved the setup!
Just thinkin'
GdeP
